


like the sun, I will rise; like spring, I will return

by azulaahai



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I'm a pretentious fuck as usual, Unresolved Angst, a lot more show!verse than book!verse this time, angstier than I usually write, but canon divergent either way, sorta anti-daenerys sooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 11:43:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14284191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azulaahai/pseuds/azulaahai
Summary: After swearing fealty to the dragon queen, Jon is returning home.





	like the sun, I will rise; like spring, I will return

Snow is falling the day he comes home, as if foreboding his arrival. 

The first reported sightings of him come at twilight, and Sansa makes the necessary preparations with a cold in her heart that scares her.

Jon. It's still Jon. Sansa paces Winterfell's halls. She sends everyone away, clinging to solitude, desperately trying to sort out her thoughts.

Jon.

Jon is coming.

There is a distance to the way she thinks about him now - there has been since they first got word of what he’d done. 

A king who kneels is no true king. 

One of the lords that has come to speak to her said that, though at the moment, Sansa does not recall which of them. They have been so many, pledging her their loyalty in the same breath as they’ve condemned Jon’s actions. 

Sansa’s been unsure of how to react - how is she to respond when they imply that it is her they support, not the king they all crowned? The northern lords have all but laid their swords at her feet. Sansa is unsure of how to wield them.

Is Jon the enemy now?

She’d done her best to calm the lords, to quell their anger. It’s been a difficult thing, to attempt to soothe their rage when she feels it so very strongly herself.

He left her. Left them all. 

Does he know what she has done? What he has inflicted upon her to do? She’s been oil on the water, a blanket over the fire, when she’s had half a mind to watch it all go up in flames. She’s debated, charmed, spoken, entertained. She must have prevented a dozen uprisings by now. Not for him, no, not for Jon. For the north itself. 

Does the king know how broken his kingdom is?

He is coming home, with new scars, and a new queen by his side.

Has he forgotten? 

Forgotten Robb, forgotten father, forgotten the reality of winter? They’ve had so little time, and he has used it to turn his back on them.

Sansa seats herself at the head table of the great hall, the lords exchanging looks as she sits down. Once, she might have shivered at the implications of her greeting royalty not with the inferiority and obedience of a loyal vassal, but with the cool and calculating welcome one gives to a visitor who could be either friend or foe, but now ...

Sansa is lady of Winterfell, and they will be guests beneath her roof tonight, royalty or no. A dragon queen, and ...

Can a man still be king if he denounces his crown?

They have put their faith in him and he has thrown it away. Sansa clenches her jaw. She has declined meeting them at the gates, does not want to see Jon in the eyes in any place but here. The great hall of Winterfell, the seat of Northern power. This is where she’ll face them.

Let him see, let the queen see, let them all see.

The north does not fear. The north does not cower.

And so the doors are opened, and the king who is king no longer has come home. 

The Targaryen queen is at his side indeed, looking snatched out of one of the old songs, white hair flowing, eyes sparkling violet, but the lords in the great hall do not look at her.

Sansa does not look at her.

Jon looks every bit the same, looks so much himself that it breaks Sansa’s heart a little. How can it still be Jon? How can the man who went south be the same man who has returned?

How can Jon, same old Jon, be the one who has done this?

The almost-king does not meet the gazes of his lords. It is her eyes he seeks, and Sansa feels the ice creep over her once again when he looks at her.

She has dreamed against her will, prayed against better judgement, longed against reason for this moment. And here it is, here he is. With his usual dark, unruly hair, haunted eyes, and something that looks like it might be trying to be a half-smile at her playing on his lips.

He has come back. He is home.

(Is it home to him, still?)

**Author's Note:**

> sorry


End file.
